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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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The three most important cities in Canada in economic terms have been considered to be among the best in the world for the expatriate businessmen, according to a news survey released this week by the Economist Intelligence Unit*. The survey was part of its Worldwide Cost of Living service assessing the level of hardship for expatriates in 130 cities around the world. According to its results, the best places to live on our planet are Vancouver (Canadian province of British Columbia) and Melbourne (Australia). Toronto (province of Ontario) and Montreal (province of Quebec), the two biggest Canadian cities, are among the best 10 cities in the world**. Calgary (province of Alberta), called for its oil and gas industries the Canadian Huston, is put under No.16.

The so-called hardship criterion is used to determine which cities in the world are safer for the business expatriates and which aren t. The hardship assessment is using multiple factors, divided in three categories: convenience of the local infrastructures; the cultural life and how safe is environment; and the health and security systems. The cities with less hardship factors are considered to be the best and vice versa. If a city has a mark below 20 percent it s recommended for living. If the mark is above 65 percent, you should be very careful and if possible avoid visiting such places.

The two leading cities Vancouver and Melbourne, have been given only 1 percent hardship mark. For the Vancouver, the survey says, everything except the climate and the transport infrastructure are considered to be ideal. All reviewed Canadian cities (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Calgary) have been given up to 5 percent of hardship for expatriates. Considering the terrorist threats, many cities in the US have fallen between 10 and 20 percent of level of hardship. The best city in America is named Honolulu (7 percent) and the worst Washington DC (19 percent).

If cities of Canada are placed on the top of the list, the other end includes mainly the cities from Africa and the Middle East. On the very bottom is put Port Moresby, the capital of the Pacific country of Papua New Guinea, where the hardship rating is 80 percent.

Endnote:
The survey concludes that the best region in the world is Europe and the proof is that half of the cities in the top 10 are from Europe. Closer look though suggests that this comparison isn t fair, because cities with more than 3 million of people (Melbourne, Toronto, Montreal and Frankfurt) have to compete with much smaller towns like Geneva, Zurich, Copenhagen or Oslo. If the survey included only the big cities with population of more than 1 or 2 million people, the top 10 could look quite different.

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* - Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the business information arm of the Economist Group, publishing also the worldwide known magazine The Economist.

** - The top 10 includes 1 - Vancouver (Canada) and Melbourne (Australia); 3 - Perth (Australia); 4 - Vienna (Austria), Geneva (Switzerland), Toronto (Canada) and Zurich (Switzerland); 8 - Adelaide and Brisbane (Australia), Copenhagen (Denmark), Montreal (Canada), Frankfurt and Dusseldorf (Germany), Oslo (Norway).

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